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Unfettered is coming, a masterful anthology of epic fantasy edited by author Shawn Speakman, featuring unfamiliar stories set in familiar worlds. A sneak peek of Unfettered will debut at this year’s Phoenix Comicon, which runs through Memorial Day weekend, and all this week Tor.com will be discussing the stories included in that sampler: including new tales from the worlds of Terry Brooks, the Vault of Heaven, and what may possibly be the last glimpse we’ll get from inside the world of Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time.

Unfettered is more than just an anthology, however.

Diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma in 2011, author Shawn Speakman quickly accrued a massive medical debt that he did not have the ability to pay. That was when Terry Brooks, author of the epic Shannara series, offered to donate a short story that Shawn could sell through Grim Oak Press to help alleviate those bills.

That offer touched off a wave of other donations from Speakman’s fellow fantasy authors, including Brandon Sanderson, Patrick Rothfuss, Tad Williams, Naomi Novik, Lev Grossman, artist Todd Lockwood, and many, many more. And so Unfettered was born.

Being a full-time author in the U.S. often involves the risk of going without medical insurance, and even with insurance there’s no guarantee that intensive and prolonged treatment won’t completely drain the personal finances of an author or his or her family. In this way, Unfettered is more than an anthology, it is the epic fantasy community standing together to hold back the tide so one of their own can make a stand.